Full Description
Jon Stratton provides a pioneering work on Jews as a racialized group in the popular music of America, Britain and Australia during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Rather than taking a narrative, historical approach the book consists of a number of case studies, looking at the American, British and Australian music industries. Stratton's primary motivation is to uncover how the racialized positioning of Jews, which was sometimes similar but often different in each of the societies under consideration, affected the kinds of music with which Jews have become involved. Stratton explores race as a cultural construction and continues discussions undertaken in Jewish Studies concerning the racialization of the Jews and the stereotyping of Jews in order to present an in-depth and critical understanding of Jews, race and popular music.
Contents
Contents: Introduction; Moanin' low: Jews, whiteness and torch singing; Jews dreaming of acceptance: from the Brill building to suburbia with love; 'Stay with me': torch songs and the assertion of Jewish difference in the 1960s and 1970s; Jews and blues: the Jewish involvement in the 1960s blues revival; The Beastie Boys: Jews in whiteface; A Jew singing like a black woman in Australia: race, Renée Geyer and Marcia Hines; Not quite English: Helen Shapiro's Jewishness and English exclusivity; Visibly Jewish: Amy Winehouse in multicultural Britain; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
